


and when we go crashing down, we come back every time

by orphan_account



Series: who can decide what they dream? [1]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Day 2: Family, Gen, Lilita Morgan Week, Not a ship-based fic, Re-use for lilita morgan week, also yes i do believe that carmilla smokes, obviously this is more an exploration, there are implications of Carm14
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2018-03-04 19:39:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3086060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She dropped a cigarette into the pit, a reminder of what Lilita Morgan once was and what she had been to her. It was nothing short of symbolic but it still made her feel better than she had felt in the months since her death, since she had lost the only family that mattered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and when we go crashing down, we come back every time

**Author's Note:**

> This is post-finale and after the Christmas special, obviously. I just wanted to do an exploration of what would happen if this situation arose. I'm not too happy about the ending but I feel like it needs building up either way and yet I don't want to. Have fun.
> 
> Also, this fic is for Maddie who is very special to me and enables my love of Lilita Morgan.

In some ways, she had always been dancing with Maman, had always been her precious girl even when she had not wanted it. Staring out at the stars over the pit, she realised that she still belonged to Maman, still yearned for her as she had when she had first been restored to life.

It was a curious feeling, this. She did not want it but, at the same time, she could not send it away, could not turn away from it. She could not escape that want no matter how much time had passed, no matter how much she wanted to.

She dropped a cigarette into the pit, a reminder of what Lilita Morgan once was and what she had been to her. It was nothing short of symbolic but it still made her feel better than she had felt in the months since her death, since she had lost the only family that mattered.

“Sentimentality, dear? I didn’t think you would carry around such human traits even after all this time.”

She did not turn, did not move, an unnecessary breath clenched within as she gritted her teeth. Of course things would never be easy, would never be simple. Maman was much too powerful for that, so much more than she could ever hope to be.

Hands grasped her shoulders, slid down her arms, circled her waist. Warm breath grazed her ear as Maman pulled her close, ran her tongue down the column of her neck.

“You were always meant to be mine, Mircalla, were always the one I chose for myself. Yet, you’ve left me, haven’t you? You smell and taste of that human pet of yours.”

“Laura’s not…she’s my…she’s her own person.”

“Yes, I can see that. She’s not like you, is she? She’s not this submissive creature that you have always been, this beautiful, if disobedient, treasure. She doesn’t belong to anyone.”

She shook her head minutely, Maman’s scent pervading her senses, clouding her mind with the movement. She did not want to give in, did not want to return to that shattered, empty existence under this woman’s thumb, an existence she had never really parted from, even after Maman’s death.

“Does she even realise the power she has over you? The hold on your soul that is hers now? Does she realise how easily she can destroy you, my darling? How easily she can break you apart?

“It would be such a shame if she knew, if she used that power. After all, love such that is can do many, many cruel, wicked things. You and I both know that.”

She did know that, did know exactly what it could do. Maman loved her, she had loved Ell, and yet they both broke her, smashed her beyond repair. Only, she could never have put the pieces back together, not even now while she remained a bloody, heinous existence. In death, perhaps, she might find her redemption but not now, never now even with Laura.

“We are the monsters that hide in the dark, smiles and sparkling eyes meant for deception and destruction. There is no one to save you from yourself, no matter how much you might think otherwise.”

She turned then, burying her face in Maman’s clothes, pressed, neat as always. There was something in her words, some kind of pleading and begging for something that could never be again that caused Carmilla to seek this false comfort, to know that Maman was real.

It had always been like this in the beginning, always been her who sought comfort when Maman would reveal something so intrinsically real that it hurt her as much as it hurt the older woman. They were connected somehow, connected in a way that went beyond what the sire bond should have been.

Once she had known another like her, a vampire who would prowl the streets of London, mourning a love that had been taken away from her by her own sire. She had been a sad creature, not pitiful but grand in her grief as she was younger, more naïve than Carmilla had been. She had hated him, hated all that he represented but she had never come close to killing him.

Oh, she had come near, had always been able to come so close to victory that she could almost taste it. Only, she could never bring herself to deliver the final blow, could never convince herself to end his life with her own hands.

She hated him but she could not kill him. That hatred was an intrinsic part of who they were, just as the need to kill, to feast on the blood of those weaker than they were. The desire and yet the inability to kill those who had turned them, it was as much a part of them as the hunger was.

Still, it was a curious thing that she would have even wanted to do so. Carmilla may have wished Maman dead many times but she had never wanted to be the hand that killed her, had never wanted to be there when the light finally left her eyes.

She loved Maman too much, wanted more than she could ever have even as she did not want this. It was everything and nothing at the same time, transient in its power and yet the very thing that held her down for centuries up centuries until she could no longer breathe without the leash that connected her to Maman.

Maman was her past, her present. She was everything that Carmilla had once wanted and everything she now fought against. There were days when she would look at herself and see only her, days when she could not help but be reminded of the woman who had destroyed her and then made her into something she had not been in life.

“Sweet child,” Maman crooned, her hand tangling in her hair, “I will never leave you, not so long as I continue to live.”

“Why? Why won’t you leave me?”

“You are mine. You will always be mine, forever and now. There is nothing that I would not have done to keep it that way.”

“And now?”

Maman pulled back then, her smile feral even as she smoothed her clothes with controlled, graceful movements. She was always like this, always a harsh mixture of wild origin and trapped power that was never allowed to run free so long as she could control it. It was something Carmilla had always coveted, something she had always wanted but never tried to grasp.

A howl, a momentary distraction, and Maman was gone. She did not know why she followed, why she allowed herself to run after her, the shift from human form to panther as instinctual and natural as her attraction to Maman. She should have gone back to the dorm, returned to her lover, but she could not leave the situation to develop as it had been, could not allow Maman to roam free without confronting her in some way, not anymore.

She had changed. She did not know when or how, but she had become something more and something less than the apathetic creature she had been. Once upon a time, she would have said something trite about it being love, but she could not attribute it to that alone now.

She wanted to be better, to be something good, now. It was not redemption she sought, not outside of her lover’s touch, her love. No, it was reparation of a sort, a form of repairing the damage she had allowed to happen, even if she could not do return the lives that had been sacrificed to Maman’s cause.

A taunting laugh echoed through ancient wood, over eternal streams and rivers, calling to her, pulling her deeper and deeper into the wood. Russet flashed under the moonlight and she knew that she was not alone but she paid it no more attention as she focused her mind on the scent trail Maman had left for her.

There was no time, no rhyme or reason as to why she should. Maman was all that mattered, was the only reason she had chosen to enter the wood on the night of the full moon, the only reason she had dared to venture into the encompassing darkness this close to Samhain.

Maman was more important that what lay in the dark, more powerful. Her presence would ward the unwanted away from her path and so Carmilla stuck to it faithfully as she always had. This would be the last time, would be the final confrontation. She could feel it in her bones, rushing beneath her flesh and so she honoured that by following in her footsteps.

Skidding to a stop in a clearing painfully familiar to her, she looked down at her grave, empty for so long, left as it was, a testament to her rebellion. She snarled at the darkness that poured out from the black pit that wound its way through the earth in a slow, thick miasma, but she did not move any closer, wary of what it would do to her.

Prowling around the borders of the clearing, she watched as Maman materialised out of the shadows, her arms, bare of her jacket now, scarred as she raised them up to the moon above. There was something darkly wonderful about the sight, something that called out to the monster within her.

She knew that she should not do it, knew that going to her now would only bode darkness in her future, but she could not help herself. Even after all this time, after everything that they had done to each other, Maman had this hold over her that prevented her from running when she needed to. She had this claim on Carmilla that she could not deny, could not escape from.

“Mircalla, do be a dear and face me like a civilised person.”

A flick of Maman’s wrist and she was standing before her again in her human form, spine rigid, eyes narrowed as she regarded the older woman suspiciously. There were very few times when Maman would use her power on her, preferring much more to manipulate Carmilla’s senses with her body than with whatever it was that resided inside of her.

A shift in the shadows behind her, a low growl. She hissed in the direction from which it came, not caring that Maman was watching her, wicked amusement crossing her features. She did not need the interference, not now when the situation required a delicacy that was only ever cultivated between the two of them.

“You should be dead,” she whispered, meeting Maman’s gaze. “Laura…she crushed you with that boulder.”

“Yes, well, not everything is as it always appears. Your pet thought she killed me but you ought to know better. After all, I was the one who taught you the importance of deception.”

She flinched at the reminder, the reference to their shared past. She did not want to but she could not help but remember those afternoons spent under Maman’s fingers, the heat that would course through her under that touch. She could not help but recall the way Maman would make her feel as if she was all that mattered, as if nothing else was of importance.

“Unfortunately, my ties to Styria have been broken,” Maman continued, breaking Carmilla out of her nostalgia, forcing her back into the present. “I can no longer be here, having been forced out by blood and battle. You, however…”

Maman approached her now, fingers caressing her skin as she unconsciously leaned into that touch. It was loving, caring, as much as Maman was capable of being anyway.

“You are tied here forever now, you and her. Blood and sacrifice. It only ever comes to that and you have both paid the price. Fare well, my beloved child. You won’t be able to hold the darkness within from consuming you. I know this well and so do you.”

Lips against her forehead, her cheek, and Maman was gone.

Carmilla fell to her knees, wept.


End file.
